How do you love someone
by Hagne
Summary: Love hurt. It always did. It always will. What really mattered, in the end, was to love. Because it was worth it. It would always have been.


Breaking up at her age wasn't so unusual.

As a matter of fact, it happened quite often.

It was common, especially between teenagers like her.

_And yet,_ that kind of talk would have been appropriate for a childish crush that made your knees shake and your mind fly for a while, not for True Love. That one was a mistake.

_A misconception._

Because breaking up with your true love would have_ broken_ you.

It would have shattered your soul, it would have made you want to scream and cry, to hit and _hurt_ who was leaving you, _anything,_ to make the other part understand the pain, the bitterness, the despair for the split-up.

And being implicitly the reason for the separation could only increase the anger and the disbelief that was eating you alive, because that was what Edward was saying between the lines, with politeness, _with kindness, _and it was just that kindness that made Bella feel like a fool.

Because people who loved each other broke up with anger, with bitterness, frustration_, not with kindness._

\- It will be as if I have never existed.

_Crack._

The stone hit and crumpled against Edward's cheekbone even before Bella could be fully aware to have bent over to pick it up, but she felt the knuckles burn for the harsh rubbing against the ground, so, she had really done it.

_For real?_

After all, it was not the first time for her to imagine things, thinking the worst about simple assumptions of her mind, but that time, that time she had imagined nothing, that time she had done something,_ for real._

She had thrown a stone, a small one, mind you, against Edward's face, a face that kept on being beautiful and breath-taking, but the astonishment that tensed his sharp cheekbones, and the disbelief that colored his eyes, that was new.

And nice.

_Really_ nice.

Because surprising Edward Cullen was not a piece of cake, it was a really a titan feat, and the thought to have torn him a normal reaction, a human one,_ for once_, made less bitter the awareness of having been left alone.

\- A forest, Edward?_ Really?_

Deep lines of confusion dug Edward's perfect brow when her voice became sharper, angrier, but she wanted it, _she pretended it,_ from herself.

She had all the right to be angry. To be screaming at him like that.

_It was normal,_ it was how people _usually_ react when being left behind by who was their world, a world Edward had shattered along with her heart with all that kindness that made her want to puke.

\- You are leaving me because you are afraid of hurting him, of killing me, _in a forest? **A forest?**_ And then people accused me to not be the brightest crayon in the box!

She was becoming hysterical, she probably _already was,_ but who cared!

To hell everything!

**To hell Edward Cullen and his persecution delusions!**

\- Do you want to leave me? To break up with me? _Fine! _But do it where I can't get lost and fall and_ die_ in a ditch! And do it for a _real _reason! Do you love someone else? Am I ugly? Fat? You can tell me_ everything,_ but not that you are leaving me for my sake! That's just bullshit!

She had never sworn so much in her life, truly, she had never been so aggressive towards someone, so violent, but it seemed that Edward was able to bring the worse out of her, her sense of inadequacy, her fear of being too little, always too wrong, _not enough, _and now, now even the awareness to be just like all the other teens.

Angry with the world. With _everything._

When she threw another stone at him, Bella wished to see cracks in all that perfection, that cold surprise.

She wanted to_ hurt_ him, just as he was hurting her with his stupid words, his foolish reasons, with his _fucking kindness, _but despite her effort, Edward kept on showing her only a pained expression, as if_ she_ was the one who was causing all that pain to both of them.

He was master of his emotions, while she, she had gone mad with grief.

_Because he did not really care _whispered a voice in her mind, bringing more tears to her eyes.

He never cared enough.

\- Don't you have anything else to say?

Bella had always loved his golden eyes. She had dreamed of them, but now, not she hated them.

_She hated him._

He and the sympathy in his eyes, as if she could _really_ understand what she was feeling, as if he _knew_ why she was screaming and crying, but he knew nothing.

He knew nothing about her.

\- Bella, you don't understand, it can seem unbearable right now, but one day you will find a…

\- But of course – she cut him off abruptly, raising her hands in the sky to show her astonishment - how can I not think about it – and she even patted her forehead to stress her silly forgetfulness – you have _always_ wanted for me to find another man to love, to be happy with. Of course. **_Sorry_**.

Her voice had reached a hue so grating that it was beginning to annoy even herself, but Edward had a super hearing, and making him cringe would not have been so bad. Not at all.

\- You know what? Tomorrow I will ask Mike out, just to make you happy, alright? So, if we had finished here, I would go home.

Bella threw another stone, _this time bigger,_ because she felt her hands itching, or because, if she wanted to be honest with herself, she wanted to disguise the crumbling of her own heart with the one of the stone.

Edward did not move a muscle, not even a twitching in his eyebrow, but it was enough, for her, to just throw a stone.

To move. To _do_ something, unlike him.

To show_ something,_ unlike him.

Bella turned on her heels with a huff, following the_ probable_ exit to the forest with a brisk space.

The tears made the world around her a little blurry, but she would have tumbled even with a clear sight.

When she collided with the ground with her knees, a curse escaped her lips as she forced her body up again, then, she felt it.

The weight of his eyes that made her suddenly aware of all her flaws and the swirl of air that made her hair fly when Edward stopped in front of her with a dumbstruck look.

\- What do you want to do, Bella? Alice doesn't see you in her vision. Don't do something foolish!

Edward's hand fly to her forearms even before she could retreat.

The cracking of her bones made her wince, and when the disturbing sound reached even the vampire's ear, a look of horror froze the gold in his eyes.

\- Forgive me – the sudden movement made her lose her balance, but Edward did not try to reach a second time, too intent on watching his hands with a look of horror and pain that made her insides cringe.

And there was _so much_ pain in his face, in his eyes, that Bella felt the need to reach him, to reassure him, at least, until he returned to speak.

\- Forgive me, Bella. I did not want to hurt you. I did not think that you would have reacted this way.

The fingers she had left stretched for him to reach closed in a fist when she heard his pained whisper, and whatever reassuring words she was trying to fish out from her chest burned along with her_ stupid_ pity when a new flow of anger drowned her mind.

\- You did not think that I would have reacted this way, Edward? _Really?_ And what did you think, um? What did you think Edward? Did you think that I would have accepted it in silence, waving at you as you walk away from my life after all we had been through? Really?

She was drinking her own tears now, but Bella did not care to choke. She did not care if she would have died of dehydration.

Crying as a baby helped. Screaming as a banshee helped.

Edward's sudden show of insensibility, it did not.

\- Are you serious? What did you get me for, Edward? For a puppet? _For a doll? **Christ Edward!**_ You

are breaking up with me and you pretend that I do not get angry about it?

For a soul as kind as Edward's, that display of insensibility was embarrassing, out of place, but maybe, maybe she had always overrated him. Too perfect. Too beautiful. Too everything.

And now, too stupid to be true.

\- I didn't know to have fallen in love with the _dumbest_ vampire in history! And now go away, I want to go home.

Edward's cold hands returned to immobilize her, but the sudden growling at his back was an excellent deterrent to the vampire's obsessive need to have everything and_ especially_ her under control.

Bella threw a vacant look over Edward's shoulder, and when she recognized Jacob's fur, an annoyed sigh escaped her lips when she realized to be surrounded by dumb mythological creatures who did not want to leave her alone while she, she just wanted to go home and eat a healthy jar of vanilla ice cream.

_Maybe two._

\- Jacob leaped forward with a restless roar, staring angrily at the hand Edward closed around her arm to bring her behind his back in a protective stance.

Edward's overprotectiveness had always flattered her, but right now, it was only annoying and ill-timed, especially when it was _him_ the one who could really hurt her, _who had already done it,_ and Bella did not want anything from him.

He had left her, right? They had broken up. _Fine._

She was not his business anymore, and it was with that thought that Bella slipped under his arm to walk again to the probable exit of the forest, if they just let her find out!

\- Bella!

\- Bella!

Jacob was on her even before she could try to climb over a dangerous ditch where she would have probably died of a _horrible_ death if Jacob's burning hands had not lifted her from the ground, crushing her poor body against his _obvious_ bare chest.

And even if usually she liked Jacob's hugs, his warmth, Bella found it annoying, especially when, what she truly wanted was Charlie. And her ice cream. And a spoon. _And to scream._

\- Let me go!

Her voice had had to be really shrilling for Jacob's to let her go with a grimace, but Bella could not pat herself on the shoulder for her achievement, because Edward intercepted her, towering over her with a look so confused to make her want to puke. Again.

\- You too, Edward._ Let me go._ Can you leave as you wanted to do from the beginning? We broke up, alright? I am no longer your business.

\- Did you break up with her?

Jake's incredulous and s_tupid _question made her want to scream more.

\- None of your business, _dog._

When Jake's burning hand reached for her arm, closing his fingers around her pale skin, Edward's cold ones strengthened the grip around the other arm, making her eyebrows fly to her hairline in astonishment.

_Really?_

\- Bella is _my_ business.

\- Let her go_, beast_.

\- _You_ are the beast, and _you_ should let her go.

\- Or what?

More than one woman would have squealed in delight if she had been the one to be tugged by two handsome men, but what left her lips was a groan of pain that made them let her go in unison, making her fall on the ground._ Again._

\- Don't you dare to touch her!

\- Didn't you hear Bella, bloodsucker? She is not your business._ Not anymore._ If you don't want her, then I will take her.

\- Thanks a lot, Jacob, I really feel better _now._

She had been downgraded from a poor teenager with a broken heart to a _thing, a toy _two animals fought over with the daintiness of a stake planted in the ass.

_What gentlemen, really._

They kept on growling, hissing and making sounds only animals were able to release, but when Jacob decided to make his muscles talk, color returned to kiss her cheeks while a row of trees fell on the ground with a thundering roar after Edward's crash with them.

\- Nice shot, Jacob.

Tears stopped rolling down her cheeks while Jacobs wrinkled a handsome smile for her praise and Edward, Edward resurfaced from the darkness with chipping of woods stuck in his hair, his eyes widen in what Bella could only describe as _pain._

_Betrayal._

Good.

The pain was good. It meant that he was able to feel _something,_ that he was not simply made of stones.

It was only that Edward could not feel for her what she felt for him._ It was all that._

Simple, but painful nevertheless.

\- Bella, we need to talk…

\- _Oh,_ I think that we have already talked enough.

After dusting off her jeans, Bella returned to look up, but her eyes were projected beyond the confused expression of her _ex-_boyfriend, while her hands searched clumsily for the phone she soon brought to her ears after waiting for the only voice she now wanted to hear.

\- Bella? Is everything alright?

A bubble of warmth chased away the cold that was freezing her from insides when Charlie's concerned voice blew in her ears, giving her a _real_ sense of protection, _of affection._

\- Where are you? Are you alone?

A little quivering of her lower lip. Bella did not allow anything else. No more tears to choke her breath.

She could not._ She should not._

Edward was gone, even if he was still in front of her eyes. But he was gone _from her life._

Beautiful. But now too painful to watch.

_Enough. _

\- Yes. _I am alone._

Her admission did something to Edward's eyes.

It was like watching a diamond shattering to pieces under the brash carving of a cruel hand.

She could almost count the ramification of the lesion on the surface, thin engravings that kept on deepening and deepening under the pressure of the hand that finally reached the core, shattering to pieces what, in reality, _could not break._

Her eyes did not dare to close, she _needed_ to see it, to see Edward's cold face crumpling like the abused statue of an Olympian God.

She did not try to cover her ears, not even when the sound of broken glass became too much to bear.

But she needed that_ too_. She needed _to hear_ his soul shattering. She needed _to see_ the scream in his eyes.

She needed to see that, in the end, he was broken just as broken she was, even, if for different reasons.

Because, if she was dying for love, Edward was probably crying out in grief for something he had not been able to protect.

Something he had not been able to preserve, like a jewel.

Not a woman.

Never, as a woman.

\- I am lost.

The pain in her voice was not forced, just like the tears were not only for show.

She truly was lost, broken, too broken to be able to collect the pieces on her own.

She just wanted to be found by someone who would not have trampled on the pieces of her heart.

_She deserved a better love._

\- Can you find me? I am…

The line fell even before she could finish the sentence, even before she could tell Charlie where she was, but parents always knew where their children could be, and when her father found her seated between dead leaves with her face in her hands, he did not ask for explanation, he simply picked her up in his arms, bringing her in the car in silence.

When Bella recognized the leather of the seat and the weight of Charlie's jacket on her shoulder, crouching on herself like a child was something she could not prevent herself, just as she could not prevent the tiny whimper that escaped her lips when Charlie tried to peek through the hair fallen on her face.

Chief Swan started the car without a word, but Bella did not have to see outside, to lower the radio Charlie had tuned to distract her, because she could still hear it, the rustling in the trees, the whistling in the wind, just as she had felt Edward's eyes fixed on her crouched form until Charlie had found her.

_He had not left her._

He kept on following her, but not because he cared,_ she scolded herself._ Not because he loved her, but because he thought that it was his duty to keep her safe.

_Only that._

\- Can I sleep with you tonight?

Instead of the silence she had expected to hear after her feeble whisper, what Bella felt was the gentle weight of Charlie's hand on her head. No question, only silence.

A silence she filled with a voice that Bella felt breaking in her throat when she tried to speak, to explain something that not even her heart was still able to accept.

_To see._

\- Edward and I broke up.

A sob.

It started with that. A tiny sob Bella tried to muffle against her hands with a confused look.

More tears?

Did she still have them?

Yes, _she did,_ and that time, Bella really ended up drinking them.

Because now, now the anger was gone, so the bitterness and the frustration, leaving her with the pain.

The deep, excruciating pain of accepting something she had not to acknowledge. Not really.

_Not until now._

Because Edward had left her.

Edward did not want her. He had never wanted her. Not a woman. Not as a lover, but as someone, he had to save from himself, _from the monster that lurked in the darkness._

She was the saint to worship. The angel to preserve.

The light to keep.

But there was no light in her eyes, only tears and the darkness she forced on herself when she pressed her face against the seat to suppress her desperate cry.

Because she had been left alone, she had broken up with the love of her life, and even if it happened often, even if it was not uncommon at her age, it still hurt.

It _fucking_ hurt.

* * *

**A little twist to a part of the book where I just wanted to scream in outrage, because, really! This is my vision of how things should have been. There will be a deepening on the supernatural world that surrounds Bella too, and new things to discover, new people to meet.**

** Thanks you for reading!**


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